It was known from the leading news papers (17-05-2006) that the UGC has decided to exempt Ph.D/M.Phil degree holders from qualifying the National Eligibility Test (NET) for the lectureship at colleges/universities in India. This decision of UGC is based on the interim report of the Mungekar Committee, a NET review committee formed by the Government of India (MHRD) to consider the utility, effectiveness and continuity of the NET examination, under the chairmanship of Prof Bhalchandra Mungekar. The committee recommended that after 17 years of its introduction, NET has lost its relevance. It has proposed M.Phil as minimum qualification for teaching undergraduate level and PhD for teaching postgraduate level.
NET was introduced by the University Grants Commission (UGC) in 1989, to bring uniform standards in the selection criterion of teachers at colleges/universities in India. It was instituted as an impartial, unbiased and corruption-free route for the appointment of lecturers. Even the committee formed by the UGC in 1983 under the chairmanship of Prof R. C. Mehrotra on revision of pay scale of teachers in Universities and colleges recommended that “qualifying at the National test conducted for the purpose by UGC or any other agency approved by UGC and masters degree with at least 55% of marks or its equivalent grade for the post of lectures. It specifically recommended that these qualifications should not be relaxed even for candidates possessing M.Phil/Ph.D at the time of recruitment. It also felt that the stipulation of M.Phil/PhD as an essential qualification for lecturers had neither been followed faithfully nor did it necessarily contribute to the raising of teaching and research standards. In fact, it had led to the dilution of research standards on account of the rush to get a research degree in the shortest possible time”. While discussing the National policy on Education in the Parliament in 1986, it was reiterated that “The method of recruitment of teachers will be re-organized to ensure merit, objectivity and conformity with spatial and functional requirements”.
The new hasty decision taken by the UGC under the guies of recommendations made in the interim Prof. Bhalchandra Mungekar committee is clear denial of the earlier stands to ensure the quality of higher education through uniform selection criteria. This interim report itself is in want of scientific basis to justify its conclusions. This decision only helps to ruin the academic standards all over the country. It helps only to boost the commercialization of the higher education in India. It will bring back the nepotism and corruption in educational institutions.
The ground reality is that most of the students, even after earning M.Phil/ PhD degree fail to clear the NET and hence seek exemption. The test merely aims at finding out whether the incumbent has knowledge of the subject or not. If the Committee feels that M.Phil or PhD Degree holders have better knowledge of the subject the natural question that will arise among the laymen is that, why are they balking at taking the test? Lowering the criterion for minimum qualification will not help in ensuring the quality of education. The lowering of the qualification criterion is an acute (Deliberate?) myopia on the part of policy-makers who think that plenty of people should become educationists, irrespective of whether they are worthy or not. It is desirable to retain the NET examination as the mandatory qualification and give weightage to M Phil/Ph D degree holders at the time of appointment as the teachers at colleges/Universities in India.
On the ground of the above mentioned facts we request you to be kind enough to interfere in this matter and take necessary steps only after thorough discussion with all the concerned parties, including the representatives of research students from around the country, teachers from Universities, and eminent educationists to avert a decision that will bring the degradation in the quality of higher education in India.
